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2 Burnside American Studies- General

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The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

by Stephanie Coontz

The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The Way We Never Were examines two centuries of American family life and shatters a series of myths and half-truths that burden modern families. Placing current family dilemmas in the context of far-reaching economic, political, and demographic changes, Coontz sheds new light on such contemporary concerns as parenting, privacy, love, the division of labor along gender lines, the black family, feminism, and sexual practice.

Review:

"Coontz approaches the subject of what we now insist upon calling 'family values' with what is, in the current atmosphere, a refreshing lack of partisan cant."(--Jonathan Yardley,Washington Post)

Review:

"Provocative, challenging, and persuasively argued."(--William H. Chafe, Duke University)

Synopsis:

From "a man's home was his castle" to "traditional families never asked for a handout", this provocative book explodes cherished illusions about the last two centuries of American family life to expose the falseness, sentimentality, and self-righteousness of our accepted familial morays.

Description:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [377]-379) and index.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Alan Rudy, March 17, 2007 (view all comments by Alan Rudy)
This is an exceptional part sociological, part historical and part polemical dissection of the contemporary politics of the family, particularly that circling around the idealized model of the 1950s suburban white nuclear family.
The key point is that the family so often idealized is a product of highly particular social circumstances, in short the post-war/cold war boom, circumstances which had never existed for the majority of folks (anywhere) beforehand and no longer do since the rise of neoliberal forms of globalization and national de/re-regulation.
Furthermore, even in the 1950s, the '50s nuclear family was far less the norm than imagined (poor, rural, immigrant and old-money'd families have never lived this way) and generated far more social, psychological, sexual and gender contradictions (witness, the 1960s and 70s) than could be contained within the ideal.
Followed by The Way We Really Are (1997?) and Marriage, A History (2002?), Coontz's work is fabulous for undergraduate sociology, social work and general education courses -- as well as fascinating for non-students interested in questions of family and marriage.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780465090976
Subtitle:
American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
Introduction:
Coontz, Stephanie
Author:
Coontz, Stephanie
Publisher:
Basic Books
Location:
New York, NY :
Subject:
General
Subject:
History
Subject:
United states
Subject:
Family
Subject:
Sociology - Marriage & Family
Subject:
Sociology
Subject:
Sociology, anthropology and archaeology
Subject:
Marriage and family
Subject:
Nostalgia
Subject:
United States - General
Copyright:
1992
Edition Description:
Pbk. ed with new introduction.
Series Volume:
1697
Publication Date:
January 1992
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
432
Dimensions:
8.00x5.34x1.19 in. .79 lbs.
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